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and the hereditary foes were struggling in a death grapple, upon the eaves of the precipice. Sometimes they leaned far over the brink, and then, unitedly, bent back, like twin pine trees, overblown. Both were unarmed; for the Algonquin had not suspected an enemy in a place where the foot of an Iroquois had never trod, and the weapons of his adversary were distant from them a bow-shot. So, with terrible strength, and zeal, and skill, each sought to overthrow the other, until, in the struggle, they fell, still clutched together, upon the rocky floor of the battle-ground. There, with tremendous throes and throbs of anger, they lay, until the shadows of the cliff had stretched far over the bosom of the sparkling river.

"Let us rise," said the Algonquin. The warriors rose to their feet, and stood gazing at each other.

There they stood, upon that terrible brink. The touch of a hand would have precipitated either upon the fragmentary shore below.

"Let us not perish," said the Algonquin, "like the raccoon and the fox, starving in the death-lock, but let us die like braves."

The Iroquois listened.

"Do you go," continued the Algonquin, "tell the warriors of my tribe to come, that they may witness it, and I will leap with you from this ledge upon the death below."

The Iroquois smiled.

"Stay," added the Algonquin, "I am a child. Do I not know the fate of an Iroquois, who would venture within the camp of my people? Remain you, until my return, that the history of my deed may be inscribed with that you have pictured upon these rocks.”

The Iroquois smiled again, and said, "I wait." The Algonquin bounded from the parapet, and was gone.

Left to himself, the Iroquois collected together his painting implements, and filled with brilliant colors the outlines he had sketched upon the wall. Then he cast his spear far into the sparkling river, and sent the stone axe circling through the air, until it splashed far out in the stream, and he broke the tufted

bow with his powerful arms, and snapped his feathered arrows one by one. Then he girded on his gorgeous belt of wampum, and waited. Of whom was he dreaming, as he sat beneath the shadow of the pictograph? Was it not of the blue-eyed maiden, with cheeks like the flush of sunset on the snow?

The Iroquois waited. Then he heard a murmur, as of the wind stirring the leaves, then the rustle of rapid footsteps, and, as he started to his feet, the cliffs above him were thronged with Algonquin warriors. There was silence for an instant, and then an hundred bows were bent, an hundred bow-strings snapped, an hundred arrows converged through the air, and struck him! But

as he turned to hurl defiance at his enemies, a warrior form bounded upon the parapet; it caught the figure, studded with arrows and tottering upon the brink, in its arms, and screamed into the dying ears, "I am here, O Iroquois!" and then, except the pictograph, nothing human remained upon the platform of the Palisades!

When I had finished the legend, Mr. Sumach startled the echoes with a burst of fluting that defies description. So I set to work resolutely, to pack up the basket, for I thought such a place as the one we were visiting did not require the aid of art to make it interesting. After the packing was finished, we started off for the boat, Mr. Sumach tooting over the rocks in a marvelous manner, until we came to the place where some climbing was necessary, and there I had the satisfaction of seeing the flute dislocated and cased, and then it fell in the water, where Mr. S. had some trouble to get at it. When we got to the place of anchorage, we found the tide had risen, and the grapnel under water, but no boat. So I suppose the other end of the rope had not been tied to the ring in the bow. We had a pretty walk, though, to Closter, and hired another boat. As our boat was brought home next day, it was no great matter, but I wished the person who found it for us had found also the oars and the thole pins.

THE GENTLEMAN'S SHAWL.

ON my way to the Trosachs and Loch

Katrine, I lodged one night at the very snug inn which intercepts tourists at the Brigg of Turk, near the royal hunting forest of Glenfinlan, and just half a mile from the hostel of Ardcheanochrochan. Formidable as the Turkish name was, it was less so than the unpronounceable Gaelic one. By tarrying there overnight, I gained an early glimpse of my first Highland shepherd, seated on a rock, enveloped in a shawl of hodden-gray, which entirely covered him, and was a protection against the cold drizzle. Since that day, the Scotch shawl has become American.

The simplest variety of human apparel, after the fig-leaf and the fur, must have been the web of rude cloth, wrought, as the Arab and Indian now work it, by means of a warp stretched on the earth, and a shuttle flying across it with the woof-thread. Between this and the Jacquard loom, there is a vast stretch of progress; yet it is surprising to observe what showy and even elegant textures come out of these primitive instruments. The early raiment probably did not vary much from the parallelogram of white cotton, which the Hindoo gracefully winds about him, and which he, at other times, wreathes into a manifold turban, when the sun beats too hotly for any European hat or umbrella. This long-cloth, as it is technically called-and the name has crept into the commercial parlance of the world-admits of every variety of adjustment, according to the figure, means, and taste of the wearer.

Seen

in contrast with the ebony or olive skin of the Hindoo, and among the palmary foliage of tropical trees, it leaves scarcely anything to be desired, and is, in truth, the elementary origin of all sculptured drapery. The great basrelief of Flaxman, in the antechamber of University College, Oxford, which commemorates Sir William Jones, by representing him as one of a group compiling the digest of Indian Law, illustrates this flexibility of the simple web, which may be seen in several conformations on the three Brahmin sages. The consummate taste of Flaxman led him to seize at once on this native trait, and he is true to Asiatic costume. The Cummerbund, which renders to the

lower castes that service which gave a name to Gallia Braccata, is twisted as ungracefully as is the Scotch shawl by a Glasgow clerk, when he out-highlands the Highlander.

A garb so simple and obvious must have commended itself to every nation which possessed the textile art; and, assuredly, the investigations of our day do not lead antiquaries back to any period when the loom was unknown. Such savages as are ignorant of the shuttle, have degenerated from a more luxurious people, who once flaunted in its motley products. It is not in continental Asia that we find any such barbarism; because from thence we derive the shawl, both name and thing. Cashmere was long famous for shawls, properly so called, before Europe knew anything of an article now so largely included in commerce. To the looms of this delightful region we also owe the species of cloth universally known as cassimeres, or cashmeres. While that country was under the king of Candahar, the shawl-business alone employed forty thousand frames. The finest of these are believed to be woven of the warmest, or most non-conducting material ever used by man. The long shawls were a hundred and twenty-six inches by fifty-four; and the square shawls were about seventy inches. The elegant blending of colors was as much admired as the texture. These superb coverings loaded the camels of caravans and cafilas, pressing on their weary marches to Northern India, Cabul, Ta:tary, Persia, and Turkey. As to va lue, it is enough to say, that the time has been when a celebrated London dealer held one of his cashmere shawls at five hundred guineas. Napoleon's introduction of the Thibet goat into France is justly recorded among his pacific benefits to mankind. The shawl which M. Jacquard wove for the Empress Josephine, during the breathing time of Amiens, came from a loom, or machine, which cost twenty thousand francs. The wool of the cashmere goat is daily spun and woven in Glasgow and Paisley.

If any one cares to inquire about Hebrew shawls, he need only make his beginning at any one of the sixteen synagogues of New York. When peo

ple wonder in Broadway, why Mr. Cohen or Mr. Levi wears his shawl with so matchless a nonchalance, the solution is, that he has practiced it ever since his boyhood, in the putting on of the Tallith, or prayer-cloak, which every devout Israelite wears at his public devotions. Some of these are very beautiful. And while the young banker's clerk, of Wall-street, reduces his Judaism to a minimum, by letting his synagogue-cloak shrink into a mere scarf about his shoulders, the venerable Polish or Syrian Jew, such as we have occasionally met on high festivals, covers his whole body, and even his head, with this token of reverence. We have been told that the fringe, which is upon the ends of this silken shawl, is annexed in compliance with a precept in the Fourth Book of Moses, which says: " Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments, throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue." The name of these fringes is Tsitsith, meaning "flowers," or a "flower-like ornament." With this we are, however, less concerned than with the shawl-like character of the Oriental mantle, which is, after all, a modification of the sheet and the blanket, of which the former is worn by the Indian of Bengal, and the latter by the Indian of Michilimackinac. So widely distributed is the gentleman's shawl, that the trapper of the West wears a blue mantle named, from a town in Gloucestershire, a Stroud; and the South American ambassador wraps his shoulders in a figured texture from Thibet. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, no doubt, wore the shawl, now called a shelmé by the Arabs. "It is almost a general custom," says Bishop Pococke, "among the Arabs and Mahometan natives of Egypt, to wear a large blanket, either white or brown; and in summer, a blue and white cotton sheet: putting one corner over the left shoulder, they bring it behind, and under the right arm. and so over their bodies, throwing it behind over the left shoulder, and so the right arm is left bare for action."† Mr.

Lane, who, with characteristic fidelity, brought back from Cairo as minute an account of the modern Egyptian wardrobe as if he had been a tailor in search of Arab fashion-cards, speaks thus: "A kind of blue and white plaid (called miláych) is also worn by some men; but more commonly by women, in the account of whose dress it will be fully described: the men throw it over their shoulders, or wrap it about the body.” As afterwards described, this is almost a tartan, "woven in small checkers of blue and white, or cross stripes, with a mixture of red at each end."‡

Antiquity is all in favor of the shawl. Not to meddle with Fingal, which Mr. Macaulay takes as his standard of impudent forgery,§ we beg leave to dip a little into the Talmud, which is so well authenticated, that, notwithstanding its vastness, many Russian Jews have thought it worth while to commit it all to their memories. In both Talmuds -to wit, that of Jerusalem and that of Babylon-an inventory of Hebrew garments is given, in eighteen particulars. Among these, is the shawl masculine-not, indeed, called by its Hebrew name, Tallith; but by a Greek name, in Hebrew letters, Kolbin, that is, Kohóßiov.¶ Though the Colobium of the Romans is said to have been the sleeveless mantle, or poncho, out of which grew the tunic,* we dare assert it was the Haïk or Hyke, universal among the Kabyles and Arabs of Africa and the Levant; a garb which, whether floating upon the haunches of a fleet Arabian, or swathed around the sleeping Bedouin, is far more picturesque than the best fit of a French dress-coat.

The "web of Penelope" has become proverbial, as descriptive of the doing and undoing effected by rich and beautiful widows-Penelopes telam retexere— there can be no longer any doubt that it was a shawl for her traveled husband. The whole thing is in the nineteenth book of the Odyssey, and we would gladly give it in Greek; but, as our younger lady-readers may not have gone so far, Cowper's exact rendering must suffice:

"I gave to him, myself, a brazen sword, A purple cloak magnificent."

Numbers xv, 37, 38, 39. Deuteronomy xxii., 12.
Lane's Modern Egyptians, vol. i., pp. 48 and 73.
History of England, Lond. ed., vol. iii., p. 363. Note.
Professor Gfrorer, of Stuttgart, in his History of Prim. Christianity.
Lightfoot. Hor. Hebr. in Luc., ix., 3.

t Vol. i., p. 190.

** Gellius, vii.. 12.

The radiant colors of the Mexican blanket, now familiar to our eyes upon the shoulders of returned Californians, and the grotesque but ample flow of the South American poncho, are going far to convince us that our priggish and succinct style of body-coats, surtouts, box-coats, and caped top-coats, must give place to some felicitous blending of art and nature, as in the shawl. A simple web of party-colored cloth, as we have already said, is an element of beauty, which gives employment to every æsthetic talent belonging to the arts of dress, of painting, or of sculpture. These qualities belong to the gentleman's shawl, which, we proceed to show, was the ancient Pallium, the etymological origin alike of the funereal pall, and the lamb's-wool vestment bestowed on an archbishop by the pope. Those widely err, who think of the pallium as what we call a made-up garment; it was, in the beginning, a square, or oblong piece of cloth-that is, a shawl; and the wonderful functions which it discharges in the marble relics of art, are due to this, its free and unconventional character. It was taken right from the loom, without so much as a hem, and without tailoring. This Himation, or outer garment, was often used as a blanket, or even a bed. Like the Scotch shawl, it was generally party-colored, and often had a fringe. "The more splendid and elegant tints were produced by the application of the murex, the kermes, the argol, and the saffron. Pale green was also worn. The pallium of one color (ιδιόχροον ἱμάτιον), literally, the “selfcolored blanket," was distinguished from the variegated (rowíkov): and, of this latter class, the simplest kinds were the striped, in which the effect was produced by inserting, alternately, a woof of different colors; and the check, or plaid (scutulatum, tesselatum), in which the same colors were made to alternate in the warp also. Zeuxis, the painter, exhibited, at the Olympic games, a plaid, having his name woven in the squares, in golden letters.”* To show the adaptation of the ancient blanket-shawl, we might borrow statements from the classics, of its use as a bed, a carpet, a curtain, a sail, a housing, a swaddlingcloth, and a winding-sheet. Just as

Glengarry, or McCallum More, lays off his tartan, so Telemachus puts off his purple shawl, when about to try his father's bow.t

Now if Mr. Philip Chesterfield or Mr. George Washington Howard chooses to object to the gentleman's shawl on the score of ungracefulness, we shall proceed to join issue with him, on a point in which we have all the Muses on our side. If that excellent Gentile priest, the Abbé Winkelmann, could be brought into court, he would bring along with him the Berlin gem, of which he says that "it holds among intaglios the same place which Homer occupies among poets." Here, among five of the "Seven against Thebes," we should observe Polynices and Parthenopaus arrayed in the pallium. And, as we already meet Scottish gentlemen in the woollen line, who sport a gold shawl-pin, especially when snow or rain induce that truly Highland fold of the plaid which leaves a semblance of hood and sleeves, so the ancients came to employ a brooch, TEоóvη, or fibula, over the right shoulder. The statue of Phocion, in the Vatican, is thus presented, and no one can look at even a print of this, without recognizing the folds of the shawl. And hereby hangs a tale. "Phocion's wife," says Aelian, "wore Phocion's plaid," but Xanthippe would not appear in that of Socrates.§ The aforesaid pallium was part of a Greck philosopher's stock in trade, as necessary as the white cravat of a clergyman, and was called, from its want of nap, tribon; in Latin, palliastrum. Antisthenes first doubled his blanket, and the other Cynics followed suit; it is well known that Diogenes lived and died in a shawl. The word "palliate" is derived from the muffling disguise of this garment.

We have strayed sadly off from our shepherd at the Brigg o' Turk, with his scanty plaid. Let us return to say, that according to Pennant, it is a striped or variegated cloth, worn as a garment by the Highlanders of Scotland. The Gaelic word is plaide; which Jamieson, our best Scotch authority, interprets "an outer loose weed of tartan worn by the Highlanders." The tartan is "cloth checkered with stripes of various colors." All who are versed in Celtic

Mr. Yates's art. "Pallium," in Smith's Antiquities.
Mus. Pio-Clement., tom. i., tav. 43. Cited by Yates, ubi supra.
Aelian, Var. Hist., ed. Tauchnitz, p. 109.

† Homer, Od. xxi., 118.

|| Smith, p. 720.

annals know that each pattern of this cross-barred or striped woollen is claimed by some clan. There is, or was, a shop in Argyll-street, Glasgow, where one might furnish himself with any of these insignia; and a costly work has appeared, representing all the Highland chieftains, each in the family tartan. But the proper and distinctive name of the gray or striped shawl, as worn in the lowlands, and noted in Guy Mannering, is the maad or maud. The shepherd's plaid, now strangely become a fashionable adornment, has been for

generations the protection of the Scottish hind, against mists little short of rain, and during snows. The caprices of dress are droll. Young fellows come from abroad, wearing with much complaceney the clasp-pouch or gibecière, which not long ago was the symbol of a courier, and which, before that, was the huntsman's game-bag. But the mercury being near zero at this present writing, I will not breathe a word against a mode so warm, so pliant, so timehonored, and so sensible, as that of the Scotch maud.

SNIP-SNAP.

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Cynthia was pretty, in the freshness of her age. American beauty comes forth like a flower, and is cut down. The loveliness of girlhood rarely ripens in the matron. And Cynthia was afraid to risk her loveliness, no doubt; for whilst she encouraged the attentions of many "beaux," who, in the language of her society," went to see her" evening after evening, at the snug farmhouse of her father, whenever any of these swains took the opportunity to press upon her notice the nature of his case, and urge the necessity of its speedy cure, she cut the matter short with him.

Truth must be said, that amongst all her admirers there was not one who was a priori-that is, before a reciprocation of his love took place-a very desirable match for her.

The richest was Seth Taggart, who paid his last visit to her one afternoon, in a brand new suit of glossy, fine, black broad-cloth. Pretty Cynthia was alone, and prepared by previous experience to discern symptoms of an approaching assault upon the Malakoff of her affections. She pursed her pretty little mouth, and sewed, with nimble-glancing fingers, on the sleeve of one of the old squire's shirts, of unbleached cotton; and thought to herself what a fool Seth Taggart was, and wondered how he would get out of the fix in which he found himself, and how he could dare to think she had given him encouragement-and looked-very bewitching. Poor Seth sat on the verge of his chair, and gazed through the window, which was open, into the woods, but his was a mind like that of Wordsworth's Peter,

"A primrose, on the river's brim,
A yellow primrose was to him,
And nothing more."

He did not find any inspiration in the woods, so he began to look into the ashes.

"Miss Cynthia," said he, at length, "did you ever see a crow?"

"Yes, Mr. Seth," said she, folding her gusset, and looking down at it demurely as a mouse.

"Black-ain't it?" said Seth.
Very."

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Then came a pause. "Darn it-I wish she'd help me out," said Seth in his own thought. 66 The little minx knows what I want to say, and she might help me to say it."

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